History Characters / FullMetalDaemonMuramasaMainCharacters

'''Main Characters''' ([[Characters/FullMetalDaemonMuramasaKageakiMinato Kageaki Minato]])\\

[[Characters/FullMetalDaemonMuramasaKageakiMinato See Kageaki Minato here]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Yuhi Nitta]]
!! Yuhi Nitta
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/st_2.png]]

A naïve but optimistic highschooler living in Kamakura. He's the protagonist of Chapter 1, investigating the disappearance of his friend Kazama Ritsu, who went missing for several days. Despite somewhat lacking of ambition and charisma, he nonetheless has his heart in the right place and tries to do his best while hiding his contempt for the Rokuhara Shogunate. Orphaned from a young age, he was adopted by a neighboring family.

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: After what she went trough with her teacher, Yuhi was basically the sole person who tied Konatsu to her sanity. Once he died she spiraled into madness very quickly.

* MindlinkMates: She's bonses to Kageaki in a manner which allows him to speak to her mentally at anytime, as well as being able to share mental images. If need be, he can even assume partial control of her functions.

* ImmuneToMindControl: She is unaffected by Ginseigo's MindRape abilities, something that ends up earing her Hikaru's interest.

* AmbiguousDisorder: While the entire cast is mentally unwell one way or the other, it is made clear that something is incredibly wrong with Kanae's mind. She is both cruel and manipulative while also abiding by a strange set of morals unique to her alone, holding that revenge is the one true justice. She is also shown to have relished in killing animals in her childhood, starting with insects and working her way up to larger and larger animals before finally graduating at humans. And finally she seems to hold herself with some kind of strange nihilism, that she doesn't care if she gets killed if someone were to come after her for a revenge of their own.

* WomanScorned: At one point, she and Shishiku were seemingly headed toward a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage--then he killed her father and took over the family. In the ''Nemesis'' route, she eventually ends up killing him and having a breakdown afterwards.

* SpannerInTheWorks: In the ''Hero'' route, the plan was for she and Kageaki to infiltrate Fudaraku fortress and slay the young prince in order to put a black mark on the Shogunate's majesty, stymie the ambitions of the Four Generals in regards to putting him on the throne, and thus shift the balance of power in Yamato toward Haruhiro. Ichijo ends up pursuring General Doshin, and ends up killing him. It's fine that their battle destroys the unmanned outer fort--as much as symbol of Rokuharan power as the prince-- but the death of the General threatens to throw Rokuhara into collapse, thus making Yamato a target for outside forces like the GHQ to take over. More directly it leads to General Raicho, who had been working with Prince Haruhiro to become paranoid, leading to his and Akitaka's deaths.

A naïve but optimist highschooler living in Kamakura. He's the protagonist of Chapter 1, investigating the disappearance of his friend Kazama Ritsu, who went missing for several days. Despite somewhat lacking of ambition and charisma, he nonetheless has his heart in the right place and tries to do his best while hiding his contempt for the Rokuhara Shogunate. Orphaned from a young age, he was adopted by a neighboring family.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Downplayed, he managed to get Ryobu who was fully decked out in Shinkai at the time to actually trip backwards with just his bare fists. Not a mean feat given how powerful Tsurugi's are.

** At first he comes to believe that Kageaki is a badass police agent fighting for justice, even when the cause is hopeless. Then after Yuhi and friends offend a Yakuza, Kageaki kowtows and allows the thug and his friends to beat on him, and Yuhi becomes disgusted and loses faith in him him. Bonus points for not realizing how brave it was for Kageaki to both resolve the situation peacefully and give up his dignity for their sakes.

* IllGirl: Ended up suffering from heavy metal poisoning, most likely lead, by eating fish tainted by a nearby factory. She had been suffering for a year with frequent seizures, loss of weight and even her bones becoming fragile, being left an empty, emaciated husk slowly wasting away.

* CryCute: Once she finally manages to snap Kageaki back to his senses, she breaks down into tears for the first time in the story, finally breaking down her iron facade.

'''Main Characters'''\\

!! Kageaki Minato (Formerly: Jiro Arata)
!!! Voiced by: [[Creator/TakumaTerashima Ishikawa Yuusuke]]
[[quoteright:204:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kageaki_full.png]]

->''"Whenever you take a life, no matter who they are, you must be prepared to kill the good as well as the evil. This is the Law."''
-->'''Voiced by:''' [[Creator/TakumaTerashima Ishikawa Yuusuke]]

A gloomy and mysterious man who presents himself as a deputy officer working for the police. He first appears in Chapter 1, investigating the whereabouts of Ritsu Kazama, a teenage girl living in Kamakura. With the help of Yuhi Nitta and his two friends, he eventually corners the culprit behind her disappearance and subsequent murder.

A war orphan, he was taken in by an old friend of his father and made part of the Minato family, a bloodline tasked with guarding a terrible curse. As he grew up he made his living as a simple salary man together with his new mother Subaru and younger sister Hikaru, trying to make do in this war torn land. This all came crashing down however once his sister was stricken by heavy metal poisoning, making every day she managed to stay alive a miracle. Unbeknownst to anyone, this would start a chain of events that would lead to the death of his new mother, the relationship with his sister forever altered, and Kageaki himself being bound by an oath, the Law of Balance. A law that stipulates that for every time he slays with hatred, he must slay an equal amount in love.
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With this oath he sets out to settle things between him and his sister once and for all. Once again taken in by the same man who adopted him all those years ago, he is now wandering the lands of Yamato as a lone musha wielding Muramasa, the cursed Tsurugi.
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He's the protagonist of the story from Chapter 2 onwards, replacing Yuhi Nitta.

* AccidentalPervert: An unusual case happens when he tries to clean Muramasa, he apparently ends touching some private areas causing her to become flustered and call him all kinds of names. Keep in mind that Muramasa is a giant metallic spider.
* ActingUnnatural: When trying to act "normal" in front of some mechanics he just ends up scaring the pants off them.
* AndThenWhat: He asks Chachamaru what the hell she and the rest of the Green Dragon Society were actually planning to do once the Golden Dawn plan actually succeeded. She admits that they really didn't think that far.
* AntiHero: He is a very bleak take on the various heroic archetypes. While he has a kind heart and a strong sense of justice, he is perfectly capable of killing innocents in order to carry out his goals and is heavily weighted down by his sins.
* AntiVillain: Deeming the life of an innocent person a NecessaryEvil in exchange for his goal of killing an evil one is no different than the way his foes have been justifying their killing of innocents for their goals. The act of killing, even for a noble cause, can have far-reaching consequences which may harm people innocent of any crime. Coming to terms with these realities and choosing to kill ''anyway'' is not a good or heroic action and the Law of Balance he spends so much energy cursing merely enforces this maxim in a manner which cannot be ignored or written off. Once he learns to accept this, Kageaki throws off any notion of being a hero, and declares that he'll bring peace to the world no matter how many people he has to kill.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: When he decides to embrace his villainy for the sake of peace at the end of the story. Sorimachi throws one last ArmorPiercingQuestion about Kageaki's murder of Fuki and Funa and his breakdown of him killing them. Kageaki simply retorts that Sorimachi was wrong and that he was laughing at their deaths. This is enough for Kageaki to gain Sorimachi's respect and reveal that Muramasa was alive.
* TheAtoner: Defied. In the ''Nemesis'' path, when Akitaka and Prince Haruhiro say they plan to wipe his record clean and leave him a free man due to having acted under Haruhiro's orders, Kageaki is horrified. When Haruhiro explains that it would give him the opportunity to find some way to atone for what he's done if he feels he needs to Kageaki violently rejects the notion, feeling that atonement means nothing to the dead and only way to balance the scales of his wrongdoing is for him to suffer and die as punishment. Luckily for him, that's what Kanae thinks, too.
* ATwinkleInTheSky: In the final battle against Hikaru, she ends up kicking him so hard that he goes flying into the stratosphere with a ping.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: One of Kageaki's greatest assets is his ability to keep cool and analyze any situation he finds himself in, picking up on subtle cues to formulate his own strategy against his foes. This allows for things such as noticing an assassin posing as a waitress simply by the way she carried herself, the state of her hands and how she greeted them.
* BadassBaritone: Has a really deep voice fitting for someone who is perfectly able to kick ass if he has to.
* BadgesAndDogTags: In a slightly loose sense. Kageaki served in Yamato's military in the Philippines during WWII (which took place in the 1930's in this world), and is now an agent for the police ("unofficial deputy"), if not an actual officer.
* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: While the armor isn't airtight, Muramasa is able to convert some of his energy into oxygen and pump it into his blood, allowing Kageaki to breathe when knocked into space by Hikaru.
* BattleCouple: In Muramasa's route, she and Kageaki become a proper fighting duo after they finally accept each other.
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: In order to save Muramasa from Ginseigo's power he choses to let them tackle it together, leading him to have to wander around his own soul to try and grasp himself and reaffirm what he must truly do. He succeeds and frees both himself and Muramasa from the spell.
* BeAllMySinsRemembered: He will not take lightly to his past actions being forgotten. He will remind you that he is a murderer through and through and no hero whatsoever.
* BeingGoodSucks: He tries his best but things just never seem to work out for him, either causing more harm to others or emotional duress for himself. Often both.
* BelatedLoveEpiphany: In the past, when Mizuhi died in his arms, he's shocked at how deeply he grieves for her and realizes that she'd become dear to him in the short time they had together.
* BetterTheDevilYouKnow: Part of the reason he shoots down Clive's WeCanRuleTogether offer was that despite how tyrannical the Rokuhara are, they are still more predicable than the League of Nations and that without them, Yamato would likely become a battleground between Britain and Russia.
* TheBigGuy: Kageaki isn't just ''really'' tall, he also spent over twenty years training in a martial art which heavily emphasizes physical strength, and being bonded to a shin'uchi has enhanced his physical abilities.
* BigSleep: His death at the end of ''Nemesis'' is a fairly peaceful affair with him expiring as almost falling asleep in Kanae's lap.
* BirdsOfAFeather: He and Muramasa ultimately end up attracted to one another thanks to just how much they share in common, right down to the GuiltComplex.
* BolivianArmyEnding: At the end of the ''Hero'' route it all ends as he makes a final charge against Ichijo and Masamune as they pull out the latters final trick as they refuse to go down after taking what should have been a fatal hit. The epilogue reveals that the results of the duel were that Kageaki and Masamune died while Ichijo and Muramasa survive.
* BoxedCrook: Played with. While Kageaki seems like a guy kept in prison and is hired to work for the police, it's revealed that he's able to walk around and talk fairly freely with the guards and the police chief. In fact, it all seems to be self inflicted by Kageaki himself due to his GuiltComplex.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Downplayed. Chachamaru manages to implant him with one of Ginseigo's eggs but instead of turning him into a mad beast, it simply removed his inhibitions, turning him into a cruel and sadistic man as he acts as her new subordinate in the Rokuhara Shogunate.
* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: One of the reasons he chose to kowtow to the Yakuza thug threatening Yuhi and his friends was in an effort to get them to stop following him around so he wouldn't end up killing one of them. Ultimately, it doesn't work.
* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: Has this dynamic with his three LoveInterests in a different capacity:
** ''Hero'' pairs him with Ichijo, who pities him for being forced to kill innocent people due to the Law of Balance, to the point she would enter the battlefield herself in his place to carry on justice to relieve him of the burden of murder. However, Kageaki finds her ideals of justice to be misgiven and attempts to stop her.
** ''Nemesis'' pairs him with Kanae, a fellow murderer who gets off by killing people in the name of vengeance, born out of a twisted desire for "justice". At first, she was more than happy to kill Kageaki for his murder of Yuhi, only to be plagued with doubts when she discovers he's a DeathSeeker with a huge GuiltComplex, and instead showers him with love and tenderness while repressing her desire to kill him.
** ''Conqueror'' pairs him with Muramasa, his first companion who followed him since the beginning. While their relationship doesn't evolve much in the first two routes, they become more intimate in the third as they learn about their respective pasts. Aware of the curse she imposes on Kageaki, Muramasa seeks to relieve him of his guilt with love and self-blame, while questioning herself about the true meaning of the Law of Balance.
* BringMyBrownPants: When Ginseigo arrives at Enoshima Island he doesn't even try to hide it. He practically soils himself at her arrival.
* BrutalHonesty: He is someone who does not sugarcoat his opinions or statements of facts.
* ButNotTooForeign: He is a quarter foreigner and knows a little bit of English due to having lived in New Holland for a time, an area containing loads of European fugitives and even Americans, all who wanted to escape British rule.
* ByronicHero: He is pretty much the text box definition of the archetype. He is a somber, emotionally vulnerable man, jaded and cynical from his past experiences and ravaged by a GuiltComplex but who also has a kind heart and sense of justice, determined to put his intertwined story with Ginseigo to rest.
* CainAndAbel: Even before their family fell apart, he was the Abel to Hikaru's Cain, being the more upstanding and humble of the two. This difference only became more pronounced after she embraced the power of Ginseigo.
* CannotSpitItOut: He doesn't tell people the murders The Rule of Balance requires of him because it would put his sponsors (Akitaka and Haruhiro) at risk as well as endangering his hunt for Ginseigo. But he'd really like to, if only to protect them from himself.
* CharacterTics: when he's sitting and thinking, his dark thoughts tend to have him slowly droop toward the floor until his forehead nearly touches.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: In spite of his best efforts to try and appear unapproachable in order to avoid putting people at risk, he still is unable to stop himself from helping those in need.
* TheComicallySerious: A lot of comedy around the guys comes simply from the fact how stone-faced he is when put in awkward or unusual situations and is able to say the stupidest things without a hint of irony.
* CovertPervert: [[AmbiguousSituation Maybe]], Kageaki is just so [[TheComicallySerious Comically Serious]] that it is difficult to tell on whether his occasionally perverted comments are meant to be taken at face value.
* CulturedBadass: After being adopted by the Minato family, he was trained to be the modern equivalent of a samurai, and so is highly familiar with literature and other forms of art.
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: As he recovered some of the pieces of Muramasa's nodachi, he has gained access to some of Ginseigo's power, dubbed "Gravity Accel", allowing him to gain even more speed. Though it is barely controllable and puts great strain on Kageaki.
* DarkIsNotEvil: He wears black clothes, has dark hair, wields a cursed dark-red Tsurugi and is even described by Nitta and his friends as an "evil-looking evildoer", but he's more moral and good-hearted than most Musha. Then again, he tries to invoke DarkIsEvil by downplaying his own heroic actions due to the Law of Balance and acting as a gloomy and somber individual.
* DarkMessiah: At the end of his long journey he decides that he will not run away and that he will strive for his ideal of peace, even if that ideal means friend and foe alike will die in droves to accomplish it.
* DeathSeeker: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]]. He fears death above all and doesn't want to die, but that is also why he views it as a fitting punishment for all of his actions and that he needs to be executed once his quest is over in order to balance things out for all of those he has killed.
* DeliberateInjuryGambit: In order to escape Chachamaru's full nelson he had Muramasa purge the armor on one of his arms, causing Chachamaru's strength to tear his arm from its socket, freeing him.
* DevilComplex: A tragic example. Due to the stuff he has to do, killing people chief among them, he has come to view himself as a devil. Someone evil to the core only belonging in the pits of hell.
* DismissingACompliment: Due to his abysmal self image, whenever someone compliments him he either shoots it down or downplays it to as great an extent as he can.
* DistractedByTheSexy: When Muramasa finally manages to achieve human form he is left unable to think straight, both due to how pretty she looks as well as struggling to make peace with the idea that he had basically been wearing this pretty girl all this time.
* DontYouDarePityMe: A variant. Thanks to Hikaru's illness requiring him to stay up all night caring for her, he often fell asleep at his office job, but his boss and co-workers went easy on him knowing his family situation. He felt deeply ashamed about this, as hard times had hit all of ''their'' familes as well and he didn't want to let them down, but they just told him to relax.
* DramaticIrony: In the ''Nemesis'' route, he swears revenge against the crux pilot who killed his father. The irony however is that said pilot was Kanae, the same person he swore fealty to for her to kill him for revenge of his murder of Yuhi.
* DreamingTheTruth: In the ''Hero'' route he ends up dreaming of his past and the time he killed his mother, only to meet Masamune instead of Muramasa. However in doing so and donning Masamune he ends up attracting a strange gaze from Subaru making him remember her teachings, resulting in him putting the pieces together as to the true nature of The Law of Balance and to what he has been doing.
* DrowningMySorrows: In the epilogue of the ''Conquerer'' route he ends up trapped in alcoholism as his guilt finally becomes too much to bear.
* TheDyingWalk: Both he and Muramasa try to press on in ''Nemesis'' after receiving fatal wounds, walking for some undetermined distance, but end up succumbing in the winter snow with Muramasa crumbling first and Kageaki some time later in Kanae's lap.
* TheEeyore: Has a perpetual gloomy aura around him that makes him very hard to miss for those that spot him and seems to be in a perpetually somber state.
* EmpoweredBadassNormal: He was already a powerful athlete and skilled fighter. After bonding with Muramasa, he gets all the perks of bonding with a shin'uchi--enhanced physical abilities, a HealingFactor, the ability to use their powers in a more limited form, enhanced senses and so forth.
* TheEngineer: Downplayed. Between his obsession with racing cruxes and his intimate knowledge of tsurugi, he has developed some decent assessment and repair abilities.
* ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter: Played with. In general, his strong observational skills extend to being able to read other people's expressions and tone very well, particularly when it comes to picking out lies. However, there are at least two occasions where he failed and failed big.
* ExtremeDoormat: Is a total pushover when it comes to most of the people he interacts with. In fact, aside from his quest to find Ginseigo, he usually follows his orders without much fanfare.
* EvilFeelsGood: He notes just how much better everything feels after he ends up inserted with one of Ginseigo's eggs which stripped away his self restraint and doubt, causing him to join the Rokuhara alongside Chachamaru.
* EvilLaugh: Breaks out in one wicked laugh when he manages to cut through the armor of Doji without the use of a tsurugi.
* FaceOfAThug: People tend to be set on edge by the aura of darkness he has around him. In addition, he has little in the way of social skills, so he tends to phrase things in a way that confirms their fears. One guy even thought he was the devil! In truth, he's generally a good, well-intentioned person.
* FailureHero: Not only is every victory he has pyrrhic in the sense that he has to kill one innocent in exchange for saving other innocents, but sometimes his successes are rendered meaningless by the intervention of outside powers like Ginseigo.
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: His perhaps deepest secret is in fact that he is not Hikaru's adoptive brother, but in fact her blood father. Forced to conceive her with Subaru due to Akitaka having been rendered infertile.
* FantasticFightingStyle: Males adopted into the branch of the Minato family in charge of the Muramasa armors receive extensive (if ceremonial) training in Yoshino-onryu Kassen Raiho, a fighting style designed with tsurugi combat in mind (though quite applicable unarmored). One notable difference between this and other fighting styles is that since most combat between musha takes place in the sky, training in footwork is mostly a formality, while raw power is the main focus. One interesting note is that it requires mastery of unarmed combat, swordsmanship and ''swimming'' before receiving the final phase of their training, due to the sky being a three-dimensional battlefield.
* TheFettered: He is someone who goes to great lengths to restrain his personal desires and emotions in favor of his goals. After he gets Ginseigo's egg implanted however all those restraints go to the wind and he becomes TheUnfettered.
* {{Fingore}}: In his attempts to kill the real Hikaru he ends up being unable to go through with it, breaking his fingers on a nearby board instead.
* GhostMemory: At the start of the ''Conquerer'' route he ends up experiencing the memories of Muramasa from her time when she was still human and what lead to the formation of the Law of Balance.
* GiverOfLameNames: When forced to enter Muramasa as a racing crux, replacing the police team's Hot Bolt, the only name he can think of is "Hot Dog". [[MetaphoricallyTrue He tries to tell her it's a name with a proud lineage]], and she asks if he thinks she's stupid.
* GrenadeHotPotato: Ends up throwing a leaking aerosol can after [[ViolationOfCommonSense he turned on a nearby stove]]. Ends up knocking both Kanae and Sayo out of the air vent. Neither were especially pleased.
* GrowlingGut: After having been out cold for three days, his gut ends up revealing just how hungry he is, something Chachamaru makes sure to quickly fix by offering him a lavish breakfast.
* GuiltComplex: Kageaki's defining character trait. He hates himself for what he is doing and any attempts to talk him out of it will just send him further into a maddening spiral of self blame and loathing. He even had his adoptive father promise to execute him, all due to his overwhelming guilt. It reaches a boiling point when he has Hikaru at his mercy and yet is unable to go through with it despite knowing what it will cause, with images of his past victims tormenting him for his cowardice.
* GuiltInducedNightmare: He's often haunted by nightmares of his past victims, given that half of them are innocent people.
* HappilyAdopted: He was adopted into the Minato family at a very young age after his blood parents died in the war, thanks to them being close friends with his adoptive father. And despite the families cranky elder, he fit into the family just fine. Later the elder would call adopting him the one good thing Akitaka did.
* HearingVoices: He is haunted by the voices of his past victims born from his guilt with them often goading him on no not hesitate in further kills. After all, he killed them with such ease, why stop now?
* TheHeroDies: In both ''Hero'' and ''Nemesis'' he ends up dying at the hands of the route heroines. In the first, he dies attempting to stop Ichijo from carrying her ideals, while in the second he dies attempting to protect his loved one from an enemy (without knowing it was her).
* HeroicBSOD:
** He first seems to kill Funa in cold blood only for it to be revealed that he hesitated and missed her heart, leaving her writhing in agony on the floor pleading for help. Suffice to say, this causes this normally stoic man to completely break down.
** His reaction to finding out who really was the pilot of Guts Eidar and examining their remains makes his already bad GuiltComplex spiral into a bottomless pit of hatred and loathing towards himself.
** When he finally finds the remains of Hikaru and Ginseigo in ''Nemesis'' he is struck by crippling grief as he sees that she is indeed gone forever as he never learned of her true nature in this route, still believing her to have been a victim of brainwashing.
** He hits a really big one when faced with the prospect of killing the real Hikaru, breaking down and is unable to go through with it due to thinking that this Hikaru is still the sister he swore to protect.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Suffice to say, he does not have a high standing opinion of himself, viewing himself as nothing but a demon and murderer. Alas, people keep misinterpreting these claims as him being humble or self-effacing when in fact he's being completely honest.
* HeroicSuicide: In the final battle he manages to invoke the Law of Balance by killing himself, the man he hates most of all, in order for the Law to trigger and kill the one he hold most dear, Hikaru.
* HeroWithAnFInGood: God knows he tries, but whenever he tries to do the right thing and genuinely help people the universe seems to find a way to screw him over and have things end in the worst way possible.
* HumbleHero: He is humble and polite, almost to a fault. Because he killed several innocent people and villains alike in the hopes of finding his sister, he certainly doesn't see himself as a hero despite his actions.
* IaijutsuPractitioner: He makes use of Muramasa's magnetic manipulation abilities to power up his Iai strikes.
* IAmAMonster: As a result of his GuiltComplex, he views himself as nothing more than a murderer and a demon.
* ICallItVera: Once Muramasa's nodachi has been repaired he decides to dub it Kotetsu.
* IgnoreTheFanservice: Inverted and played straight at the same time. When he enters Kanae's hotel room, she is standing around in nothing but a towel. She tries to play TheTease with Sayo trying to further play it up. Kegaki without missing a beat states that he would very much like to see more in his usual monotone, effectively calling her bluff, causing Kanae to completely crumble and backpedal on the whole thing.
* ImNotAHeroIm: Trying to call him a hero will just lead to him to deny it and refer to himself as a simple murderer, and pushing the issue just makes it worse.
* IndyPloy: On occasion he has to make things up on the fly when a plan doesn't go as intended. For instance, when approaching an airship he intended to cause some chaos thinking it wasn't heavily guarded only to be surprised by a couple of ST-9 Stealth Dragoons, making him do a mad dash at simply crashing into the ship and then make thing up as he goes along.
* {{Invocation}}:
** For whenever he makes use of Muramasa's Railgun they chant the following phrase togther:
--->'''Muramasa:''' I'm parting the flows.\\
'''Kageaki:''' Yoshino-onryu Kassen Reiho, adapted from Jinrai-- Railgun: Magatsu!
** Once they get the nodachi restored it is changed slightly to reflect the gained power:
--->'''Muramasa:''' The end begins. Death awakens. The void opens wide.\\
'''Kageaki:''' Yoshino-onryu Kassen Reiho, adapted from Jinrai-- Railgun: Ugachi!
* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: Downplayed. He's somewhat rough in the sack, something he ascribes to his lack of experience with women and describes as an illness from touching too much female flesh. Considering his first sexual experience was being drugged (possibly with an aphrodisiac, from his description, or a sedative that messed with his head) and tied down while his adoptive mother had sex with him in order conceive an heir to the Minato shrine--oh, and he was barely a teenager--it makes sense that he has a few...problems to work out when it comes to sex. He doesn't actually injure his partners, though he is more...voracious...than they expect.
* IWorkAlone: He will constantly try to avoid having any allies, even trying to rebuff anyone who insists sticking around this. This of course makes sense given that he is stuck with the baggage of Muramasa's curse.
* JustAMachine: When it comes to Muramasa he views her as nothing more than a tool and thus should act like it, this despite Yagenta insistence that Tsurugi like her also have a soul.
* KillingIntent: A variant: This guy gives off an almost palpable aura of despair and misery described as powerful enough to make one wonder if the sun will come up tomorrow. This generally pegs him as a fearfully dangerous person in the eyes of most people who first meet him. And they're not wrong.
* KillTheOnesYouLove: Kageaki's sad reality is that he is bound by the Law of Balance, as such he has to kill someone with whom he has a a strong positive bond (e.g. love or respect) whenever he strikes someone down with whom he has a strong negative bond (e.g anger or hatred), It doesn't matter whether it's his mother, his sister, or even Muramasa herself.
* KnightInSourArmor: In spite of how bitter and jaded he has become over the years, he still tries to help people when he can even when it puts them at risk due to the Law of Balance.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: While he is determined to complete his goals, its not the point where keeps fighting when he knows he is outmatched and will withdraw if things are going south. This is also what earns him the respect of Jo'ansai when he realizes that he doesn't need to beat him to win.
* LanternJawOfJustice: He's got a strong lower jaw and the sense of justice to match. His chin is particularly noticable in his "horrified" expression.
* TheLastDance: In the conclusion of the ''Hero'' route he suffers a fatal wound from his duel with Ichijo, only clinging on thanks to his vow. This makes him decide to put everything he has left into his final duel with her, ultimately succumbing against Masamune's final trick.
* LaughingMad: At the end of Ichizo's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech against him, Kageaki actually starts laughing. A mirthless and hollow laugh as he manages to steel his convictions to actually carry out his mission.
* LiteralistSnarking: A few of his responses to peoples' statements might be seen as this. That is, unless he's being dead serious. It's hard to tell with him.
* LoopholeAbuse: How he eventually beats Hikaru in the finale of the ''Conquest'' route. He invokes the Law of Balance by killing the one the hated the most and thus resulting in the Law demanding that he kills the one who he holds the most dear. The twist is that the one he killed was himself, and the one he loved was Hikaru.
* MartialPacifist: He's a skilled fighter even without Muramasa, but he won't fight if he can possibly avoid it.
* MaskOfSanity: The extremely formal and regimented attitude and behavior and sense of duty he had in his youth have now clearly become coping mechanisms against allowing the horrors he's experienced and participated in from overwhelming him. At times, the mask slips, though.
* {{Matricide}}: As a result of Muramasa's curse he was forced to kill his own mother after he killed Kazuma, not knowing the nature of her curse.
* MightAsWellNotBeInPrisonAtAll: Spends most of his free-time in prison but given that he keeps his tsurugi and is free to leave at anytime. Nobody except him treats it like an actual prison sentence at all.
* MilesToGoBeforeISleep: He would love nothing more than to end his tormented life, preferably after being made to suffer for his sins. However, as long as Hikaru and Ginseigo are terrorizing Yamato, he won't allow himself to rest.
* MindlinkMates: He and Muramasa are effectively telepathically linked, to the point where she can send him mental images and he can actually usurp control of her functions to a degree.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: In ''Nemesis'', Kanae asks him in a serious MoodWhiplash to stack three coins on top of each other on their sides. He proceeds to do it without missing a beat. He then reveals that he had practiced it in the past and that Hikaru could do ten. Both Kanae and Sayo are left flabbergasted by this display.
* MusclesAreMeaningful: One of the things Chachamaru notices about him right away is that he has a lean build with muscles in all the right places ideal for a swimmer...or a tsurugi pilot. He's shown to be a powerful fighter whether in or out of Muramasa.
* MutualKill:
** Sort of half'n half in ''Hero''. In the end of the route he ends up dying alongside Masamune following their final duel. Ichijo and Muramasa survive.
** Also happens at the end of ''Nemesis'', though somewhat delayed, both he and Kanae end up perishing from their injuries in their prior duel.
* NearRapeExperience: In the depths of a serious depression and heavily intoxicated with alcohol he nearly rapes Muramasa only to stop short once he realizes what he is doing, prompting him to run away in disgust and shame.
* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Following his BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind he starts to abandon his ChronicHeroSyndrome, shifting to a much more utilitarian mindset and just focusing on the bigger picture, leaving innocents to die even though he could have prevented it for the sake of dealing with something that is gonna claim even more lives.
* NemesisMagnet: Due to how he constantly seems to get involved into all kinds of stuff he ends up having the number of quite a few individuals out for his blood.
* NervesOfSteel: While he has his TraumaButton's, he is for the most part incredibly adept at keep his cool when under pressure.
* NightmareSequence: Is haunted by nightmares of his past actions, one of which sees his victims such as Yuhi, Fuki and Funa praising him even as he kills them, even complementing him on how he killed them.
* NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech: In his final bout with Ichizo, if Kageaki choses not to kill him then he will deliver a speech in how he accepts his status as a villain and will now carry on in search of peace through the Law of Might. Upon hearing this, Ichizo returns Muramasa to him alive and well as well as giving him a sort of verbal friendly clap on the back before leaving.
* NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow:
** After he took some serious blows from Ichizo, including the dreaded Immelmann Turn, he still manages to keep on going in spite of his injuries. Even the man himself isn't sure how he managed in spite of the fact that he should have been dead several times over.
** After the final battle against Hikaru he is left wondering how he is still alive given that he stabbed himself in the heart to trigger the Law of Balance. By all accounts, no amount of healing from Muramasa should have stopped his death.
* NoSenseOfHumor: Trying to get the guy to laugh through a joke is a fruitless endeavor, and about as fruitless as the times he himself tries to be funny.
* NoSocialSkills: Leaving aside the fact that just being in his presence tends to make people feel incredibly depressed, at one point he asks Muramasa, ''his armor'', how to fill an awkward pause She has only slightly better ideas than he does, which only serves to underline his problem.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: Tells Ichijo straight to her face in the ''Hero'' route that should she keep going on her current path, then she will just be another Ginseigo.
* NotSoSimilar: As Hikaru tries to tell him that [[NotSoDifferentRemark they are the same]], he eventually shuts it down as while they are both killers and bound by the Law of Might, Hikaru condones her actions and accepts herself while Kageaki is wracked with guilt and cannot forgive or justify what he has done.
* NotSoStoic: His initial failed murder of Funa caused his usual stoic façade to break, with her pleas for help sending him into a screaming terror.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: In order to duel Mizuhi, he acts like an inexperienced fool as he knows she is far more skilled than him. She falls for the ruse, but unfortunately she is very much a SoreLoser prone of ExactWords.
* OffingTheOffspring: It is revealed that what Kageaki has been doing throughout the entire story was to actually kill his own daughter, [[FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo not his sister]], to stop her mad quest for godhood. He succeeds through various means in the ''Hero'' and ''Conqueror'' routes while something else gets her in ''Nemesis''.
* OhCrap: When the nigh-EldritchAbomination your insane sister-daughter is piloting moves an entire island several miles with one casual blast, fear is the sensible reaction.
* PapaWolf: A big part of his emotional turmoil during the final stretch of the story is him struggling with the prospect of either killing his own daughter to save the world or act on his paternal instincts and promise to his mother to protect Hikaru. In the end, he finds himself unable to go through with it and determines himself to be the weak link in the coming battle. As such he has to let Muramasa take over as otherwise he would just hesitate in the critical moment.
* ParentalIncest: As mentioned, due to Akitaka taking a bit of shrapnel in a sensitive place, he was unable to conceive an heir for the Minato branch family in charge of the Muramasa shrine. Fortunately, they had a spare (adopted) male on hand who happened to be just barely old enough to potentially be fertile which meant that they could keep it all under their hat, too. Nobody was very happy about this...''solution'', least of all young Kageaki, though some drugs and a bit of rope soon had him unable to protest. The family worked their subsequent issues out by...pretending it never happened and that Kageaki and Hikaru were siblings. Of course, this was just the start of the pile of repressed issues he's developed by the time of the game.
* PastExperienceNightmare: Nightmares of his past experiences are something that quite plagues Kageaki.
* PeacefulInDeath: In spite of how much he went on in wanting an undignified death as punishment for his crimes, at the end of ''Nemesis'' he slowly and peacefully dies in Kanae's lap as if he simply went to sleep. Kanae herself even notes that he finally seemed to have loosened up in his final moments, even looking a bit younger without his permanent scowl.
* ThePenance: After his first match fighting Aharabaki, whose power reserves he'd been trying to drain, he sees the repairmen trading out the gigantic tsurugi's battery and realizes, no, it's a crate full of human beings being drained to power it, including children. He ''had'' been resting and letting his HealingFactor recover the severe damage he'd taken, but seeing this makes him force himself to walk on his severely-burned legs as a way of punishment for all the lives his strategy had taken. This is only one example.
* PerpetualFrowner: The guy hardly ever smiles. His expression is always some form of scowl or frown.
* PlaguedByNightmares:
** He is constantly haunted by dreams of the innocent people he have slain, those that looked up to him and yet still died by his hands.
** In the ''Nemesis'' route he gets nightmares portrayed in a StylisticSuck manner where he is in a bizarre court and gets pardoned for his crimes and unable to object while those around him are sentenced to death.
* PoorCommunicationKills: He tells a group of helpful potential allies that it's dangerous to be around him and that they should stay away. He does not explicitly tell the teens that he's cursed to kill a good or innocent person for each evil one he slays. Details, man, details!
* PowerFist: As a finishing move against Hikaru in the ''Hero'' route, he makes use of both Enchant Plus and Gravity Accel and then transforms Muramasa into some kind of glove, delivering a killing blow to his sister.
* PostKissCatatonia: Downplayed in that the sudden kiss he gets from Kanae in ''Nemesis'' only stuns him for a brief moment before he remembers that he is in enemy territory and gets back to business.
* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: As he was adopted before Hikaru was born there is quite the age gap between the two siblings, though later reveals makes things more complicated.
* PrisonsAreGymnasiums: One of his usual pastimes while in prison is to do lots of exercise. One of his quirks however is that he has a habit of doing sit-ups while hanging from the roof, something his guard is frequently taken aback by.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain:: The whole story is basically about Kageaki's journey from a simple salaryman to that of a dangerous mercenary warlord who is intent on world peace by the Law of Might. The notable thing is that it is less the surrounding world that sees him as the villain and more that he accepts himself as one.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Delivers a scathing speech to Ryobu in a completely matter-of-fact tone due to his incompetence at even basic Tsurugi combat doctrines.
* RedOniBlueOni: During his missions, he keeps a relatively and detached demeanor alongside Muramasa, in order to distance himself from his curse-induced killings. By ''Conqueror'' however, once Kageaki starts to build a more meaningful relationship with Muramasa, her human side starts to re-emerge after knowing more details about his past; In this capacity, he becomes the calculating, brooding and detached Blue to Muramasa's hotheaded, caring and warm Red.
* {{Revenge}}: In ''Nemesis'' he swears revenge against the Blood Crux that took the life of his adoptive father, [[DramaticIrony not knowing that it was Kanae]].
* SamaritanSyndrome: He is often left pondering on how he could have done things differently so that less people would have had to die, often to a fault.
* SarcasmBlind: Its unclear if he has trouble getting sarcasm or if he is doing it on purpose but whatever the case, sarcasm just goes in one ear and out the other with this guy.
* SecretlySelfish: Hikaru calls him out on his mindset in the ''Hero'' route where he is simply using Ichijo as a means to divert guilt. At the end of the day he is still killing, he is just using her as his blade instead to keep his own hands clean.
* SelfRestraint: He could easily break out of prison if he wanted to but refrains from it as he believes that he belongs there.
* SeriousBusiness: Crux Racing. Might be hard to believe but this guy has hobbies too with Crux Racing being something that can easily set the usual stoic Kageaki into full MotorMouth mode. And once he gets going there is next to nothing that can stop him. It took a hit from Kanae to snap him out of it.
* SlasherSmile: As he accepts himself as a villain, Ichijo who heard his NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech walks up and challenges him, now forever a nemesis. Due to this, Kageaki thinks that his usual expression is unfit for the occasion and decides to flash something more fitting. A wicked and giant toothy grin.
* SnowMeansDeath: In the end of ''Nemesis'', both he, Muramasa and Kanae are all fatally wounded and slowly succumb as the gentle winter snow slowly starts to embrace them.
* TheStoic: He is the quiet type that hardly ever emotes.
* StopWorshippingMe: If there is one thing that will set him off, it is worshiping him like some kind of hero of justice. To himself, he is nothing but a murderer who only brings death and can never save anyone.
* StressVomit: Whenever his guilt gets too much to bear he is prone of emptying his stomach with some events being especially bad. After seeing who's in the remains of Guts Eider, he actually starts ''puking blood'' once everything in his belly and the bile that follows after are emptied.
* StrongAndSkilled: In or out of a tsurugi, Kageaki is a powerful fighter, who spent over twenty years training in the martial art behind musha combat, as well as other arts such as jujutsu. Having been bonded to a shin'uchi improves his already impressive physical prowess. He's also had a great deal of experience fighting other musha in his efforts against Ginseigo.
* TakeAThirdOption: His choice in the True Ending may be seen as this. By founding a mercenary colony and choosing to work for those who take on his services even after learning the innocent will die alongside the guilty, he effectively makes himself and his men weapons for justice (Ichijo), vengeance (Kanae), or simply change (Chachamaru) depending upon the motivations of whomever deems his services worth the price. Rather than try to find a proper justification for shedding blood when there can be no such thing, he abandons the choice entirely.
* TalkAboutTheWeather: Tries to speak about the weather to break the ice when talking to a village mayor. Was more successful than him telling a joke, though that ain't saying much.
* ThatManIsDead: As part of his BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind he finally decides that the man he had used to be must die so that he finally can becomes to hero of the world to salvage the current, dreadful predicament.
* ThatThingIsNotMyChild: An interesting variation. On Enoshima Island, one of Ginseigo's eggs manages to hatch, creating a new figure that she dubs her and Kageaki's daughter. One of the possible dialogue options then is to reject it which leads to Ginseigo killing it. In fact, in a subversion, Kageaki actually has to accept it as his own in order to invoke a LoopholeAbuse with Muramasa's curse as otherwise he would have to kill Ichijo.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: How he finally resolves his GuiltComplex and inner self-hatred is by accepting his status as villain and becoming a DarkMessiah who promotes peace through destruction. Notably, this isn't society viewing Kageaki as evil, it's him viewing himself as evil and deciding to not be ashamed of it.
* ThinkNothingOfIt: He constantly tries to downplay his actions whenever he ends up saving someone.
* ThouShaltNotKill: An interesting case where he he has resolved to kill those who have had contact with Ginseigo as well as those as required by Muramasa's curse, he refuses to kill anyone else. This puts him in somewhat sticky situations against some foes where he can't fight using full power lest he risk killing the enemy. This all stems from his mother's teachings who was vehement in the idea of avoiding killing at all costs and only taking a life when it is the absolute last resort.
* TogetherInDeath: He and Kanae dies together at the end of the ''Nemesis'' route only minutes apart but seemingly content, even if he didn't get the punishment he was looking for it was still Kanae herself that finished him off even though he never knew.
* {{Touche}}:
** When he brings up that the whole deal around the GHQ inspectors being a sort of figurehead rather than actually doing something, Kanae brings up that the police ain't much different and Kageaki is left with no retort.
** When he tries to get Chachamaru out of his bed he notes that she dodges questions in a way not unfit a politician. She is quick to point out that dealing with politics is sort of part of her job description, forcing Kageaki to concede the point.
* {{Trainstopping}}: He attempts to stop some runaway train cars heading straight off a broken bridge after Ichizo decoupled the cars. Muramasa understandably calls it outright insanity. Unfortunately it didn't work. Fortunately, the occupants at the time aren't that easy to kill.
* TrapIsTheOnlyOption: Everything about Enoshima Island reeked of a trap from a mile away and yet Kageaki still insisted on going just due to the ever slightest possibility that Ginseigo was involved.
* TraumaButton:
** He has a few, most notably wounded children and looking up to him as some kind of hero. The former especially as it reminds him of the time Hikaru was bedridden.
** When he has sex, he tends to flash back to his first--unwilling and underage--time and describes his subsequent feelings and behavior as a beast taking him over. He's got severe psychological problems, but if you've read this far and are only figuring that out ''now''...
* {{Understatement}}: As he barely dodges a WaveMotionGun from Konjin, he tries to gather his thoughts and asks if that beam would have had a slight "negative impact on his health". Muramasa can't help but shout in his ear at such an obvious thing.
* TheUnfettered: As a result of Chachamaru implanting one of Ginseigo's eggs within him he loses all his formers semblance of restraint and now starts to act solely for his goals.
* UnholyMatrimony: Should he side with Chachamaru then they will become a villainous couple as they watch the world burn by Hikaru's hand.
* TheUnSmile: In his attempts to get some information out of the maintenance crews, his attempts to smile and appear approachable just produces a result that can best be described as an utter hellspawn.
* UnstoppableRage:
** When Hikaru tells him the truth of the events two years prior, of how she knew of Muramasa's curse and set things up so that Kageaki would have to pick up Muramasa and kill the bandit musha, and thus leading to their mother's death, he flies into a blind rage and begins to push the abilities of Muramasa to the utmost extreme in order to even the score with his sister.
** In ''Nemesis'' when he believes that Kanae has been killed due to a derailed train he goes blind with rage against Guts Eidar, fully determined to kill it. Muramasa manages to calm him down eventually though.
** All of this past eruptions pale in comparison to his explosion of blind, unbridled hate against Ichizo when he believes that Muramasa has been killed. Though sadly, Ichizo was very much counting on this, trying to [[StrikeMeDownWithAllOfYourHatred get Kageaki to strike him down]], triggering the Law of Balance and forcing him to kill Muramasa once she appears safe and sound.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: It is revealed that he had taught Hikaru a bit of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek Mythology]] in her youth. She especially caught on the bit about how Uranus and Gaia were married despite being mother and child. When she wondered why it was that way, he simply stated that it was the way Gods did things. Unbeknownst to him, this acted as a catalyst for her to form her current beliefs about godhood.
* VagueAge: We don't get an exact number, but he mentions graduating from high school around ten years ago, making him in his late 20's.
* ViolationOfCommonSense: In order for him to progress during the airship segment he has to turn on a stove while holding an old and leaking aerosol can. Predictably it explodes. [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption And somehow this is required to progress]].
* WellIntentionedExtremist: In the end, he choses to embrace the idea of might and intends to carry his hope of peace even if he must climb a mountain of corpses to accomplish it.
* WorshippedForGreatDeeds: A twisted and anticipatory case. When Kageaki learns that Kanae Otori plans to kill him for the death of Yuhi Nitta after Ginseigo is dealt with, he falls to his knees in gratitude sobbing into her hand, and there after comes to see her as akin to a savior-goddess who will rescue him from his tormented life. Kanae doesn't really know how to handle the prospect of a person ''eager'' to be killed.
* WouldHurtAChild: Kills the young Funa in her sleep, seemingly in cold blood. However, he quickly becomes distraught over the perspective of killing a child.
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: At the culmination of his growing disbelief to whatever the hell Muramasa is doing in the kitchen, he can't help but shout once he realizes that she is trying to cook using the railgun.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Yuhi Nitta]]
!! Yuhi Nitta
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/st_2.png]]

A naïve but optimist highschooler living in Kamakura. He's the protagonist of Chapter 1, investigating the disappearance of his friend Kazama Ritsu, who went missing for several days. Despite somewhat lacking of ambition and charisma, he nonetheless has his heart in the right place and tries to do his best while hiding his contempt for the Rokuhara Shogunate. Orphaned from a young age, he was adopted by a neighboring family.
\\\
Alongside his two childhood friends Tadayasu and Konatsu, they will uncover many clues alongside Deputy Officer Kageaki, all of them pointing to an unsavory truth: The kidnapping and murder of his friend, an event that will put Nitta's ideals to the test.
----

!! Kageaki Minato / Jiro Arata

* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: Downplayed. He's somewhat rough in the sack, something he ascribes to his lack of experience with women and describes as an illness from touching too much female flesh. Considering his first sexual experience was being drugged (possibly with an aphrodisiac, from his description, or a sedative that put him out of it) and tied down while his adoptive mother had sex with him in order conceive an heir to the Minato shrine--oh, and he was barely a teenager--it makes sense that he has a few...problems to work out when it comes to sex. He doesn't actually injure his partners, though he is more...voracious...than they expect.